2nd night out with a 12" Dob'

[Fraunhoffer]

A friend tipped me off that some clear skies were advancing in my direction so at 7pm I ventured out with the big 12" Dob' for its second outing since buying it second hand a few weeks ago.

The 12 dob just fits through the door frame and settles nicely on a concrete patch in the patio and on went the tube. I used a laser collimater to align the scope having attempted to collimate the collimater earlier in the week (it was way off). Connected up the battery and started to align. The sky was looking very grey with the rising moon, streetlights and damp in the air from rain during the day so I wasn't sure what I would be able to see and as this was an unexpected outing I hadn't prepared any particular targets to vue either. 😕

For some reason the suggested alignment stars always seem to below the fence or behind a house. I settled on Altair and Mizar. Mizar making a nice double to start the evening.

Taking my tour around anticlockwise to start with I slewed to M13 as a nice easy target. The cluster showed up clearly against the grey sky with a 15mm EP and a number of outlying stars could be resolved, the centre starting to look a little grainy

The next target was M57, the ring nebula. This landed in the right half of my 25mm EP fov so I guess my alignment was a bit hurried. The ring was unmistakeable and it was nice to be able to look at it directly and then see even more with averted vision. My CLS filter and the 15mm ep helped to subdue a bit of the grey background.

Then came M27, the dumbell nebula, which was also nearly overhead. Ive seen it clearer than this night, but it was again an obvious misty patch looking a slightly rectangular in shape. The CLS filter helping a little bit to subdue the background again.

At this point I noticed that my stars were looking a little astigmatic so I checked the collimation. I dont know if the scope had just settled a bit or I had jogged the flextube, but it wasnt quite right. I also noticed that the standard skywatcher EP adapter tilted the collimater when the screws were tightened. Returning indoors for a rummage in a box of bits, I returned with a Baader 2"-1.25" adapter and the collimater sat nice and squarely in it. The collimation needed a slight adjustment and was rewarded by some nice dark circles right in the middle of any out of focus star images.

The moon was now advancing and blanking out most of the sky so I switched to some star clusters.

M103 came first which revealed its lovely triangular shape with the red giant star showing clearly near the centre

M29 came next, slewing back over towards the west now away from the moon, which is a new addition to my Messier collection. The small triangle and rectangle were quite clear and reminded me of the Pleaides (which were still behind the tree near the moon).

M39 was another addition to my Messier collection and appeared as a rather loose collection of stars. In spite of the large number of stars in this region the open cluster was clearly a cluster of stars although I couldn't pick out any memorable shapes.

M34 was the final cluster of the night. The cluster was clearly visible in a 25mm EP even though the moon was now quite high. The drop in temperature seemed to have cleared some of the mistyness from the air - and deposited the water all over my scope.

To close the evening I toured the western edge of the moon. This is an area I haven't explored in much detail and there were a number of significant craters with central peaks casting long shadows onto the walls. I must learn what some of these are. The air must have steadied since I was able to use an 8mm EP on the 1500mm fl dob to get some nice close-in views.

The dew was falling heavily by 11pm, my secondary had started to mist up and thin cloud was drifting back across the sky so I called it a night. A very pleasant and un-expect night out and all tucked up by midnight.

I must get my pencils and pad ready next time for some sketches.

PS - loving the posts on here for some great ideas of things to look at.

 

[PaulM]

Great write up thanks fort sharing, I need some clear skies !!

[mdstuart]

Thanks for sharing your journey. If that's how good your scope performs with the moon up then it is going to blow you away on a clear dark moonless night.

Mark

[Captain Scarlet]

1 hour ago, Fraunhoffer said:

... PS - loving the posts on here for some great ideas of things to look at....

Back at you on that - I'm going to use exactly your list for First Light on my new 2nd-hand 200p, once I've re-built it - it's currently completely dis-assembled into almost all its component parts.

Enjoyed your report, Cheers, Magnus

[Ceramus]

Nice report, will try the same order with the same scope...

[Raph-in-the-sky]

2 hours ago, Fraunhoffer said:

PS - loving the posts on here for some great ideas of things to look at.

 

And this is how M29 made it to my list 😉